Experts Say Phone System Is Vulnerable to Terrorists

By ROBERT D. HERSHEY Jr., Special to the New York Times

Published: February 8, 1989

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7—
Top scientific advisers to the Government warned today that the nation's telecommunications system was increasingly vulnerable to large-scale disruption by terrorist attack.

Appearing before a Senate panel, the experts said the risks have risen because of industry fragmentation after the 1984 breakup of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company and because of advances in fiber optics and other technologies that foster heavy concentrations of equipment and data. 'Well-Placed Hand Grenades'

As a result, ''a few well-placed hand grenades would crash major portions of the domestic long-distance networks,'' said John C. McDonald, the head of a 14-member panel of the National Academy of Sciences that is scheduled to publish a major report on telecommunications security this spring.

Appearing before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, the specialists agreed that while the United States had been largely free of attacks against its domestic infrastructure, it should be assumed that terrorists would someday move beyond highly symbolic targets, like diplomatic operations and airliners, to take potentially crippling actions against broad sectors of the economy.

Telecommunications networks ''present tempting targets,'' said Charles C. Lane, a Secret Service agent who has spent the last year working as a special investigator for the Senate committee, which is headed by John Glenn, Democrat of Ohio. ''The networks are exposed, they are vulnerable; chances of a successful attack are highly probable, and significant economic damage might be inflicted as a result,'' Mr. Lane said. Congress and national security specialists have spent much time studying the protection of industrial and other sensitive operations, and the issue has gained fresh impetus because of recent terrorist activities and assorted non-terrorist episodes, like a fire last May at the central office of the Illinois Bell Telephone Company in Hinsdale, Ill.

The fire, considered to be the most serious ever experienced by the industry, disrupted local and long-distance communications over a wide area, including many business and emergency services touching tens of thousands of people.

Two witnesses, however, sought to minimize the risk of serious disruption while acknowledging that the threat of successful attack had risen in recent years.

''Major disruptions of the nationwide telecommunication networks during a peacetime emergency or disaster would be highly unlikely,'' said Benham E. Morriss, the deputy manager of the National Communications System, a Government body established in 1963.

His view was shared by Thomas A. Norman, the vice president of engineering and operations for United Telecommunications Inc., who also represented the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee.

But in interviews after the three-hour session, it appeared that the disagreement was mainly over the extent of the present threat, with those most concerned looking further ahead than Mr. Morriss and Mr. Norman.